Favoured Newborn Sassy is just better these right now. She proved it again Friday night, handily winning Yonkers Raceway’s last-of-the-month $44,000 Filly and Mare Open Handicap Pace.

Remanded outside her six rivals, Newborn Sassy (Jordan Stratton) was caught wide early, eventually settling in fourth. While this was transpiring, Lispatty (Mark MacDonald) worked around Frost Damage Blues (Brian Sears) before a :26.4 opening quarter-mile.

After a :56.1 intermission, ‘Sassy” was moving again, engaging Lispatty in and out of a 1:24.1 three-quarters. She finished off that foe early in the lane, then widened. Frost Damage Blues did slip out behind the eventual winner, with she and a bottled-up-till-late Mach It A Par (Jason Bartlett) cosmetically closing the margin
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Newborn Sass defeated Frost Damage Blues by a length-and-three-quarters in 1:53.1, with Mach It A Par, Lispatty and Angels Pride (George Brennan) settling for the remainder.

For Newborn Sassy, a five-year-old daughter of Western Ideal owned by CC Racing & Joann Looney-King and trained by Jim King, Jr., it was her eighth win in 26 seasonal starts (fourth in last six tries, career earnings over $985,000). She paid $4.10 to win.

Saturday night is Triple Crown Night, with the Raceway offering the $500,000 Yonkers Trot and $500,000 Messenger Stakes, along with companion events, the $129,014 Hudson Filly Trot & $112,904 Lady Maud Pace. There’s a gimmick Trot/Messenger Double (races 6 and 7), as well.

First post the dozen-race card is the usual evening 6:50 p.m.

(Yonkers)